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Present a Session at CAPSO 2011!
 CAPSO's 12th Triennial Convention, to take place November 21-22, 2011, will once again offer a diverse array of workshop sessions geared for private school teachers and administrators of grades pre-kindergarten through high school. You'll find our sessions to be engaging, relevant, informative, and useful.
Our line-up of workshop offerings is now almost complete. But we've reserved a few slots in order to provide readers of the E-Mailer, or colleagues they might refer, to submit workshop session proposals for the consideration of the Program Committee. We are specifically looking for sessions whose target audience is teachers (rather than administrators, specialists, school trustees, or parents), and whose content falls into one or more of the following areas:
- Arts Education
- Early Education
- Foreign Language Instruction
- Math and Algebra
- Reading and English Language Arts
Workshop sessions are of 75 minutes duration. Proposals can be submitted online, here. If you, and/or someone you recommend plan to propose a session, we ask that you do so at your earliest convenience. Sessions will be reviewed in the order in which they are received. |
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A Report from KIPP
 KIPP is probably the most widely recognized of all charter school networks. Launched in 1994 with a fifth grade program serving 48 students attending inner-city public schools in Houston, Texas, KIPP has grown into a national network of college-preparatory public charter schools. At present, the network educates more than 27,000 students enrolled in 99 schools located in 20 states and the District of Columbia. More than 90 percent of all KIPP students are either African American or Latino, and over 80 percent are eligible for participation in the National School Lunch Program.
KIPP schools offer expanded hours of instruction, with a typical school day on most campuses running from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Many KIPP schools also conduct classes on two Saturdays per month, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The schools follow an "open enrollment" policy, admitting students on a first-come, first-served basis, without regard for an applicant's socio-economic background or academic record. In the event that there are more applicants than available spaces, prospective students - who must reside within the geographic boundaries of the local public school district - are admitted by lottery.
KIPP - an acronym for Knowledge Is Power Program - schools are organized around a set of operating principles known as the " Five Pillars." These include: high expectations, choice and commitment, more time, power to lead, and focus on results. A FAQ provided by KIPP which contains additional information can be found, here.
The network's website notes that, "...college matriculation rate stands at more than 85 percent for students who complete the eighth grade at KIPP. Nearly 95 percent of KIPP alumni go on to college-preparatory high schools." So, it can be presumed that the vast majority of KIPP graduates are college ready. Now, for the first time, KIPP has released a study that examines its graduates' college completion rates. Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews, who authored a book about the founding of the KIPP network (the cover of which appears in the graphic accompanying this article), presents and unpacks the study's findings, here.
It was reported that 33 percent of the students who graduated from KIPP middle schools went on to complete a four-year college or university degree within six years of graduating high school. By way of comparison, 30.6 percent of all Americans currently between the ages of 25 and 29 have earned a comparable degree, though only 8.3 percent of those who hail from poor families have done so. An executive summary, and a complete, online copy of the report, The Promise of College Completion: KIPP's Early Successes and Challenges, can be found, here.
Mr. Mathews points out that the study's sample size was small, consisting of approximately 200 students who represented the first cohort of KIPP graduates to complete 8th grade in two schools, in 1999 and 2000. In a statement accompanying the release of the report, KIPP co-founders Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg declared: "We aspire for our students to earn four-year degrees at the same rate as students from the nation's highest-income families, giving them the same opportunity for self-sufficiency."
As Mr. Mathews notes: "KIPP middle schools have produced the greatest gains in achievement averages for low-income children to date, from the 32nd to the 60th percentile in reading and from the 44th to the 82nd percentile in math in four years." And, in this Time article, Andrew Rotherham observes that the KIPP network of schools will produce 10,000 graduates by the year 2015. He then offers the following balanced assessment of the recently released KIPP report: "KIPP demonstrates what's possible-at some scale-in highly intentional and effective schools. At the same time, while KIPP's results are a substantial and commendable improvement relative to today's status quo, they're still not enough relative to the elusive goal of an education system that genuinely propels all students to post-secondary success." |
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Quick Takes
 May Superman Pray?
On April 1, 2011, the American Center for School Choice convened a colloquium in Berkeley, California that bore the intriguing title: "May Superman Pray? The Role of Faith-based Schools in School Choice." The program, whose title gives a nod to Davis Guggenheim's documentary film, Waiting for Superman, was organized in order to "mobilize, save and restore urban faith-based schools." Some 75 education leaders representing a variety of faith orientations traveled from points around the nation to hear a variety of interesting panel presentations, all of which are now available for viewing over the web. The panels include:
School Choice - A Radical Ideology No More
Lunch Speaker - Michael W. McConnell, Director, Stanford Constitutional Law Center, Stanford University; former federal judge, US Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
School Choice on Legal Frontlines - Warming the Chill of Blaine and Other Battles
Acting Collectively to Save and Promote Faith-based Schools
Read the CAPE Outlook!
The May, 2011 edition of the CAPE Outlook newsletter is available for online viewing, or for download in PDF format, here. The newsletter is a publication of the Council for American Private Education, the national private school umbrella organization with which CAPSO is affiliated. This month's edition features articles addressing:
- The U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the Arizona education tax credit law;
- The reauthorization of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, and,
- The passage of a comprehensive voucher bill in Indiana.
A link to archived editions of the newsletter, extending all the way back to the premier edition of the Outlook in May, 1974, is also provided.
160 Days?
According to the Sacramento Bee, "Governor Jerry Brown and school officials warn that shutting down school one month early - 20 instructional days - is a real possibility for the next school year without an extension of higher taxes." A number of public school districts located throughout the state have already reduced their school calendars below the once-standard 180 annual days of instruction. The Office of the Legislative Analyst has estimated that the state would realize savings on the order of $1 billion for each five-day reduction in the annual school calendar.
Commenting on such possible reductions, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson remarked, "Of course that's horrible. Our competitors in the global economy - Japan, Singapore, Finland, China - have 200, 220 school days." (Mr. Torlakson forgot to mention those schools affiliated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles that will move to a 200-day school year in 2011-12.)
Value-Added Measurement: A Balanced View
Writing in his EdWeek blog, the American Enterprise Institute's Rick Hess offers a cautionary note in which he compares over-reliance upon sophisticated econometric models used to estimate collateralized debt limits prior to the burst of the housing bubble in 2008 with potential over-reliance upon value-added measurement as the loadstone for the evaluation of teacher effectiveness. While the always thoughtful Dr. Hess lists a number of caveats associated with VAM, including the observation that it fails to "account for the impact of specialists, support staff, or shared instruction," he adds that "sensible skepticism isn't helped by the rush of union mouthpieces and carnival barkers eager to spout conspiracy theories, excuses, and ad hominem attacks." His balanced view is succintly summarized in the following statement: "Value-added does tell us something useful and I'm in favor of integrating it into evaluation and pay decisions, accordingly, but I worry when it becomes the foundation upon which everything else is constructed."
Can Educators Learn from Stand-up Comedians?
Writing in the George Lucas Educational Foundation's edutopia blog site, Andrew Marcinek attempts to extract various insights into teaching gleaned from watching the HBO special, Talking Funny, which features comedians Jerry Seinfeld, Rickey Gervais, Chris Rock, and Louis CK. As Mr. Marcinek sees it, "educators can learn a lot from comedians. Our jobs run parallel."
They do? I'll leave it to readers of the E-Mailer to judge for themselves. As to whether educators can learn valuable lessons from successful stand-up comedians, I have no doubt that we can, though Mr. Marcinek's article doesn't exactly make a compelling case, or point to aha! examples.
Looking elsewhere on the web, I came across a scholarly article authored by Paul Armstrong, titled, "Teaching as stand-up comedy: the metaphor of scripted and improvised performance of teaching." Alas, it was so scholarly that I couldn't understand it.
Next, I found an article written by a man named Steven Roye, who bills himself as "The Professor of Funny for Money." The Professor boasts: "I developed 100% of my initial stand-up comedy material in the classroom environment-NOT the open mic environment." (He spent 20 years teaching for the U.S. Navy.) Unfortunately, to find out how he did it, it appears one must become a member of the Professor's "Comedy Pro Membership Program."
Here's a stand-up comic named Al Jackson who used to be - you guessed it - a public school teacher. Watching Mr. Jackson's video - warning: may be offensive to some - left me wondering whether he matriculated from The Professor of Funny for Money's program.
Enough said. This blurb is beginning to resemble an Andy Rooney segment. |
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Tragedy and Unity
 Largely lost amid the overwhelmingly jubilant reaction of the American people to the demise of Osama Bin Laden was the immensity of the destruction caused by the tornadoes that left a horrific trail of death and destruction throughout wide areas of the southeastern United States. During the course of a 24-hour period spanning April 27-28, the National Weather Service estimated that the region was hit by 266 tornadoes. The storms, which ravaged communities across seven states, produced the deaths of at least 340 persons, the highest U.S. death toll from tornadoes in three-quarters of a century. In Alabama, alone, 250 people lost their lives, and more than 2,200 were injured or hospitalized.
While the emotional carnage inflicted by such a calamity is inestimable, the cost of replacing and rebuilding material losses left in the wake of the storms is sure to run into the billions of dollars. As he toured the rubble in one section of Tuscaloosa, President Obama gravely remarked, "I've never seen devastation like this."
If it can be said that there is a silver lining to such disasters, it must surely come in the form of our national response to widespread loss and human suffering. As this UPI.com article observes, "State and federal authorities mobilized to clean up and rebuild, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency dispatching water, food packs, infant kits and tents to disaster areas." The response was by no means limited to governmental agencies. "Thousands of National Guard troops were mobilized to help clean up, and non-profit and religious and spiritual organizations, along with fraternities, sororities and volunteer groups, rushed to help hard-hit communities prepare meals and provide other aid for people who were newly homeless..."
This article tells of 500 American Red Cross relief workers who journeyed to Alabama from throughout the country to lend a hand. An accompanying photo shows their accommodations: a series of simple cots clustered on the floor of a Samford University gymnasium. As Mark McCarter reported in The Huntsville Times, "Too many volunteers turned out to help in the tornado relief effort here." More than 2,000 people were processed, and assigned to various tasks in Northwest Madison County, Alabama, before scores of additional volunteers were politely asked to return home. "The community support is overwhelming," said one community member. "It's like 'What do you need? We'll get it.'"
This Birmingham News article relates how Helena, Alabama resident Diane Thomas set up two card tables in a storm ravaged shopping center parking lot, and began collecting donations. "By Sunday afternoon," the article reports, "dozens of people and volunteers had flooded the parking lot with donations of canned beans and other food, bottled water, clothing and baby items. Trucks or trailers donated by local businesses were quickly filled and drove off to Concord, Pleasant Grove, Pratt City and a small community in Bibb County."
Country singing stars Reba McEntire and Blake Shelton announced a special Tornado Relief benefit concert to take place on May 26. Even Charlie Sheen has been rumored to be planning a relief event to benefit the victims of the storms. After personally observing some of the devastation, Mr. Sheen was said to have remarked that he wished to bring "money, hope, faith and healing" to the area.
Thus, if it can be said that anything good was produced by such massive destruction and suffering, it may be that it shows how Americans of every religion, race, ethnicity, and political disposition can set aside their differences, and unite for the purpose of ameliorating the misfortune of their fellow countrymen. And it mattered not a whit whether assistance came in the form of government agency employees, private enterprise, or just plain folks. The focus of the relief efforts was upon those in need, rather than the organizational or political status of those who responded.
One wonders, therefore, why some Americans attach such great importance to the question of who provides an education to our nation's young people, when the focus of our attention ought to be upon the quality of the education that is provided. Would that we could unite over the provision of education in the same way we are capable of coming together in the wake of national catastrophe. It's time we stopped quibbling over who is meeting the needs of our kids, and redoubled our efforts to see that their needs are met. Failing to do so would be tragic.
Ron Reynolds |
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Publication Note
The next edition of the CAPSO Midweek E-Mailer will be published on May 25, 2011.
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